Entry # 37:
At the Movies
It's a holiday weekend and for me that means family, friends and films!
I'm a big movie fan with fond memories of long Saturday afternoons at double-feature
matinees. Back then, I could spend the whole afternoon in the darkened theater
with my friends for 35 cents. Boy, do I sound old!
Enough about the good old days. Yesterday I saw SHREK and loved being
able to laugh out loud with a whole big room full of families I didn't even
know. I loved the whole experience. There were lots of kids, there was lots
of diversity, it was lots of fun!
SHREK pokes fun at a host of standard fairy tale and nursery rhyme
characters and makes some strong points about the loneliness suffered by
those who are different.
I enjoyed the nod to Charlie's Angels when the princess, played by
an animated Cameron Diaz, dispensed with a bunch of bad guys with swift
karate moves! Princess Fiona wasn't the helpless dimwit of a princess that
usually gets served up in these tales.
The only gag that I didn't appreciate was the ongoing joke about the height
of Lord Farquaad, the villain. Farquaad was despicable and pompous. There
was no need to make him short or joke about a physical characteristic. This
"joke" didn't fit with the rest of the film which really spoke
to the need for tolerance and understanding, albeit in an amusing fashion.
An Asian-American backlash?
On the other hand, my mother went to see Pearl Harbor. I'll probably
see it on Monday, but I'm not expecting much fun or much tolerance. In fact
I'm worried about the backlash against Asian Americans that this blockbuster
seems to be promoting.
Last week on one of the news programs they were advertising a segment about
the link between Japanese corporations and the imprisonment and torture
of American GI's. I didn't see the segment, but the tone of the commercial
was chilling.
I can't help but notice the absence of any counterbalance. There aren't
any sensational ads about the horrors of the internment of Japanese Americans.
There aren't any stories about the ongoing effects of radiation poisoning
in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The message seems to be pretty clear -- "if you attack us, you deserve
whatever you get." It's the age-old approach of portraying our enemies
as less than human and undeserving of any consideration or sympathy.
My grandfather served in the Pacific. He never talked about it much and
he has Alzheimer's now, so we won't be discussing the film or the reality.
Ben Affleck's grandfather served too, but granddad wouldn't attend the movie's
premiere. According to the actor, his grandfather didn't like to relive
the experience.
I can't help but wonder about the impact of this film on our students. How
do our Asian students feel when they see the Japanese portrayed in this
totally one-sided fashion? Do the rest of us distinguish Chinese from Japanese
or Cambodian from Vietnamese? Do we lump all people of Asian descent together
and somehow define them as our enemy?
We don't need a common enemy
I taught about the horrors of war. I focused primarily on the suffering,
using books like "Sadako and the Paper Cranes" or acts of heroism,
using books like "Number the Stars." I wanted to learn more with
my students about our mutual humanity and ways we could avoid ever going
to war again.
In a time when teachers are trying to teach about conflict resolution and
mutual respect, the powers that be are pushing programs like "Zero
Tolerance" and the need for metal detectors. I can't help but consider
the timing of this film's release. At a time when we are deeply divided,
after a presidential election that showed just how far apart we are, we
could really use some unity, some common purpose, some rebuilding.
We don't need a common enemy, we need a common cause. I'm tired of one-sided
history lessons that make enemies of our neighbors and our students. My
husband read about a Japanese man who was falsely accused of espionage in
the war, but who is portrayed in the film as being guilty. So much for accuracy.
I'd like to make a movie one day...
Next week I'll go see "Bread & Roses," a small film about
the struggles of immigrant workers, janitors, searching for jobs with justice.
I haven't seen much publicity for the film. There won't be a big premiere
or a wide release. There probably won't be connecting stories on 20-20
or 60 Minutes, but there will be an effort to portray real people
struggling against real corporate greed.
The struggling workers will look like my students and their families. The
issues being addressed will hit close to home. (I was a hospital custodian
in between waitressing jobs once. I got fired when I called out because
my daughter was being admitted at another hospital.) The lesson about organizing
and the strength found in unity is one I never grow tired of, but it's rarely
the one promoted on the big screen.
If I were going to my own classroom on Tuesday morning, we'd talk about
what I've written here. We always started out the week talking about the
weekend and what we'd done in our time apart. For me there was almost always
a movie involved -- or a book or books and lots of time to think about my/our
next move as we push for mutual understanding and growth in a society where
individual profit is continually touted as the ultimate prize.
I'd like to make a movie someday, a movie about our schools, our kids and
our teachers. It wouldn't look like Boston Public or the Dead Poets Society,
but it would be real. I wonder if anybody would come to see it...
[Editor's note: Deb is co-moderator of the
MiddleWeb listserve.]
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